Going Home
by scullymulder
Summary: Susan and Peter overcome the latest trial concerning the neighbors, earning all four of the Pevensie children a last passage to Narnia. Barely set before Last Battle. Sequel to Close Quarters. Not incest.


Title: Going Home

Author: scullymulder Not mine.

Rating: T

**A/N:** **So obviously, I've got the timeline screwed up…not too bad, though. Because in the books they didn't stay at the Professor's house until the war was over…just until they had to go back to school…actually, come to think of it, there was no real reason why the Pevensie kids actually went to the Professor's house. They just…kinda went. So really, this is more movie verse, because one, Susan is more evolved in the movie; two, the timeline fits better in the movie; three, I liked the movie better than the book.**

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Susan stared down the length of her arrow and blinked a drop of sweat away that had been precariously perched on her eyelid. After the target, which had been set a hundred yards away, came into focus, she released the arrow and sent it hurtling towards what she hoped was the bulls-eye. It had only been a year since they'd returned from the Professor's house, and after her time of getting over what people had thought, she had begun to make every possible connection to Narnia a reality.

"Well done, Susan!" her instructor complemented from behind her. "You've improved a lot in the last week."

He said that every week; every week, Susan just smiled and said, "Thank you."

Her instructor watched her put away her bow – it wasn't _her_ bow, just a compound bow; not _her's_ from Narnia. As soon as she had locked it, her instructor spoke. "Susan, you're only two years younger than me. Would you like to go out sometime?"

The eldest daughter of the Pevensie family eyed him coldly. "Haven't you heard the rumors about my and my brother? We're supposed to have an incestual relationship."

He laughed. "You don't. I've seen the both of you enough to know that you're just close. So what do you say?"

"No," she told him as she started to walk away.

Five seconds later, she was abruptly stopped by her instructor cutting her off. "Look, Susan, please. Just one chance? You won't be disappointed."

She rolled her eyes and walked calmly around him.

"You know," he said behind her, his tone making her stop. "Maybe everyone's right. Maybe you _are_ just snogging your brother…maybe you _like_ fucking him."

Susan whirled around, fire burning in her eyes. "You have no right to say anything of that sort, even if it _were_ true. Do you know why I don't want to go to dinner with you? Because you don't mean a bloody thing to me. My siblings, we all have instructors: Ed's and Peer's is 'instructor number one', you're number two, and Lucy's is number three. None of you mean _anything_ to us! In fact, when I first came here, I was already better than you! We all were! The only reason I stayed on was because you had proper equipment to practice with. I don't even remember your name! You mean absolutely _nothing_ to me. Do you think that I would lead you on like that? If you think you know me so well enough to ask me out, you know I wouldn't do that…So. That's why I don't to 'go out sometime', not because I have an incestual relationship with my _brother._"

She turned around and walked off the field, leaving her instructor to fume quietly at his obvious and painful – for him, anyway – rejection.

When she got to Peter's car (he was picking her up today) she angrily threw her bow in the back seat of his car. "Ah! I _hate _him! The _bastard_! I don't care anymore, I'm switching!"

Peter's brow creased in concern. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, just that _another_ person has accused us of fucking on the kitchen table."

"I thought you had learned to ignore them."

"It's different when someone asks you out, and when you say no, they accuse you of _fucking _your _brother_, it tends to get on ones _nerves_."

Peter threw his head back and laughed as Susan slammed the car door. "Honestly, Peter, it's not funny!"

"Oh, yes it is! You _never_ curse, Su. It's become a treat to hear you do so."

"Damn!" Susan cursed loudly (Peter chuckled again). "I left my arrow in the target."

"Here, Su, get in and I'll get it. Be back in a jiff."

After five minutes of no Peter, Susan began to get concerned; after ten, she knew something was wrong. And when fifteen minutes rolled by, she reached for the door handle when he finally came into sight. Breathing a sigh of relief, she impatiently jumped out of the car and ran to him, only to notice that he sported a large gash near his temple (one that reminded her of the one the White Witch gave him) and a black eye.

"God, Peter," Susan gasped. "Please tell me you didn't get into a fight with him."

"He swung first," Peter said, handing her her arrow. "I managed not to break it. Oh, by the way – he told me to tell you that his name was Brian."

She rolled her eyes for what seemed the hundredth time that day. "Get in the car, Peter. I'll drive us home. Then I'll get you cleaned up."

"He called you a whore," Peter said.

"I've been called that before, Peter, it's all right."

"Why haven't you told me?" he asked, the agitation apparent in his voice.

"Because," Susan spoke, gesturing to him, "I didn't want _this_ to happen."

"You can't let people verbally abuse you like that, Susan. It's wrong."

"Everyone else is saying it, Peter, just not to our faces," Susan told him as they pulled into their drive way.

She noted his lack of response as they both got out of the car. "Are you sure you're all right, Peter?"

He nodded. "Yeah, Su. It's not as bad as…well, before." He had about said 'as bad as in Narnia', but the neighbors were looking at them oddly enough already. He smiled at them, making it clear to them that he wasn't – outwardly, at least – bothered by them.

"Go sit down, Peter. Let me get my bow in and I'll clean that gash."

Peter threw her a glance and replied sarcastically, "Yes, _mum_."

When Susan had put her bow away, she had ventured in the kitchen to find Peter rummaging through a cabinet. "Peter, what on earth are you doing?"

"You were talking too long, so I decided to get the antiseptic myself…but I can't find it."

"Of course you can't. I moved it last week to the bathroom."

"Why would you do that?"

"Why would it be in the kitchen, with the pots and pans? If it spilled, then we'd be eating antiseptic along with our meal. Not such a wonderful side dish."

Peter shook his head. "You're right. Mum hasn't been the same since the war, "Even though father came home all right."

Susan nodded and directed Peter towards the table. "Sit."

He did so and she gently applied the medicine to the gash on his forehead, wincing in sympathy when he hissed in pain. "Sorry."

"S'all right," Peter told her. "Just go ahead and put a bandage on it. We've got to pick up Ed and Lu, and then go meet Mum and Father at the train station."

"Oh, right. I'd forgotten, with today's…excitement."

Peter snorted. "Excitement? Su, that implies that it was a good feeling. No, what's-his-face did not evoke 'excitement'. Maybe agitation, anger, or even fury, but not excitement."

Susan laughed, and gently put the band-aid on his forehead. "That all right?"

When Peter nodded, Susan packed up the rest of the first-aid materials that she had gotten out, and started to head to the bathroom. "Susan?"

She stopped and turned toward her older brother. "Yeah?"

"Do you ever wonder? If…What if we _were_ in a relationship…like that?"

Susan brow crinkled in thought. "I don't…I don't know, Peter."

"I mean," Peter said as he walked to her. "Would you love me more? Or less? What would it be like? Constantly hiding _everything_ we did from everybody? Would we react different to people's accusations? Would we be completely different people? It just…makes me wonder, is all."

"Me too, Peter. But…we _can't _even afford to wonder. Not after everything we've worked for. People are _finally_ starting to talk about other things besides _us_. If…If we _did_ do that, then, well, we'd slip up sometime, and things would just be worse. The only people that would ever understand would be Ed and Lu."

"I know, Susan. I know. I was just thinking out loud, really. Go get your coat and meet me in the car."

Susan tentatively smiled at him, hoping to reassure her older brother in some way, but he had turned on his heel and gone out the door before she could even think.

It was another twenty minutes before the four of them arrived at the train station, and another ten before the train actually arrived, and in those thirty minutes, Peter and Susan didn't talk to one another once. Edmund and Lucy sensed something, but didn't press the matter – both of their older siblings were as stubborn as an ass.

And then, suddenly, a great screeching sound – metal on metal – a flash of fleeting pain -- and then darkness. That only lasted a brief second however and soon all they were enveloped where the richest colors that they had only seen twice before in their lives.

They were _home_. No more ridiculing from the neighbors, no more whisperings of what they did and didn't do behind their backs. The Narnians would accept them for who they were, no matter if they were in a 'relationship' or not.

And _all_ four of them had made it. It didn't matter what came next, because they knew, _together_, they would be able to handle it.

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**A/N2: And so, I finish the sequel to _Close Quarters_. Where I left off is where the Last Battle – the part where the Pevensies are in it, anyway – begins.**


End file.
